5 questions with...Julie Girling

Julie Girling (EPP, UK) member of the parliament’s environment committee and delegation to ASEAN

Which person have worked you with which has most inspired you in your career, and how?

Robert Smith (Conservative Party) – who was deputy leader of the Cotswold council in the UK when I was leader in the early 2000s. He was in his 80s and a real inspiration, not at all staid. He was a rear gunner in the RAF during WWII and a strong advocate of peace and cooperation.

What one item would you save from your house or apartment/ house if it was on fire? (apart from your photo album)

My dog Teddy – a ancient Yorkshire Terrier who is 17 years old – with very few teeth, bad breath and still fiercely protective.

Is there anything you have personally achieved or done that would surprise people?

Learned to speak Indonesian when I lived there in the 90s when little English was spoken.

What is the most humbling thing you have experienced in your career?

Meeting with citizens adversely a­ffected by Brexit such as people in families where partners and children have di­ erent nationalities. It didn’t matter before and now it really does.

What was the most inspirational and influential book you have read and why?

Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright – With the rise of the far right in the US, EU and elsewhere, this book reminds us not to be complacent and fi ght back.

Senior UK MEP Richard Corbett says that the UK could avoid having to participate in the European elections in May - if the extension to Article 50 is longer than three months - only via a protocol to the Treaty ratified by every other national EU parliament "in record time."